There’s a guy on Twitter who goes by the name @HockeyyInsiderr. He’s a highly typical fake insider: he guesses often, repackages information available in newspaper and other media as his own, is completely anonymous, and trumpets himself loudly whenever one of his guesses hits home. He has 17,000-odd people who follow him, either for entertainment purposes or out of a misplaced belief in his connectedness (his followers include, among others, former NHL coach Marc Crawford).

Like many (even most) in hockey, @HockeyyInsiderr expected that free agent forward Zach Parise would sign with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and defenseman Ryan Suter would be joining the Detroit Red Wings. These were easy expectations to have – both teams excel at attracting free agents, both teams had cap space, and both teams had need. Pittsburgh cleared salary cap room at the NHL Draft and was widely reported to be in pursuit of Parise; Detroit just lost Nicklas Lidstrom and the team has been connected to Suter in rumours for more than a year now.

The difference is that @HockeyyInsiderr presents this sort of widely-available speculation as actual fact, obtained from sources close to the negotiations. This is a selected sampling of his comments on Parise and Suter:

Interestingly, shortly after re-publishing he tweets shown above on my personal account, I received an email from somebody legitimately close to one of the negotiations. That email confirmed that not only had @HockeyyInsiderr been incorrect in the final outcome, but that “absolutely nothing” he had said in relation to this negotiation had been accurate. It wasn’t surprising news; the email simply confirmed my personal belief.

What is my motivation in putting a spotlight on this? On a personal level, I know nothing about the man behind the @HockeyyInsiderr account. I’ve never met him, never interacted with him beyond a handful of tweets. I even recognize that many of his followers likely follow him not out of a sincere belief in his commentary, but solely for entertainment purposes.

I do it for two reasons. The first is that there are a few people who might actually put stock in these sort of fake accounts, if they get big enough. This is a public service for those people. The other reason is that I just don’t like these kinds of accounts. I see them as fundamentally dishonest. They add to the perception that people published primarily in new media cannot be trusted. Many ignore them, but at a certain point that becomes ineffective – once they’ve reached a significant audience, all that ignoring them does is give them more control over which parts of their often-conflicting ‘revelations’ get remembered. A piece like this makes it clear precisely how valuable they are as sources of information.

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